Tuesday, August 12, 2008

Governor Schwarzenegger has sued State Controller John Chiang to try to force the Controller to cut state employee's pay to minimum wage. From the San Francisco Chronicle:

Chiang vowed to defy the Republican governor's pay instructions asking that 150,000 state employees receive the federal minimum wage of $6.55 per hour and 30,000 managers and supervisors receive a salary equal to $11.38 per hour until a state budget is enacted.

The governor's position is that the state constitution and government code do not allow the state to pay employees their salaries without a budget in place.

Chiang disputes the governor's legal interpretation. He also has said it would take a minimum of six months to reduce pay to the federal minimum wage because of an outdated computer system and numerous individual deductions for each employee.

"Rather than focus on building consensus for a budget that addresses California's long-term fiscal problems, the governor seems adamant on picking a fight over whether state employees are entitled to the wages they have worked for and earned," Chiang said in a statement. "I am confident the court will share my concerns that it will be infeasible for the existing payroll system to reduce the wages of more than 180,000 public servants down to the federal minimum wage in such a short time."

CSU has said the CSU is not affected by the governor's order, and that CSU employee pay is not at risk.